Cat Pictures

Well, not exclusively cat pictures. But I got you to look, didn’t I? This one’s Clueless and the Grey Menace playing with their new Christmas toys back in January. The Socialist’s aunt gave the kids two fabric tubes and a little fabric pup tent. Warrior Princess could care less about the addition of yet more cat furniture to the arena, but Clueless and especially G.M. have taken to the tubes as places to hide and seek during their wrestling matches. Clueless is not normally this energetic, and the look on his face was the look you see on any weekend warrior’s face when he suddenly realizes that playing flag football may not have been such a great idea after all.

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Saturday. What can I say about Saturday that doesn’t make me look like a blithering idiot? Not much, I fear.

I woke up Saturday *late* with a woozy stomach. I had company coming and had intended to get up, straighten the apartment a bit, get some breakfast, and read a bit of my current book. Instead I reset the alarm clock for the latest possible time I could to ensure that I’d be up in time to pick my guest up at the train station, and went back to sleep.

Bad move number one. I should have just called my guest and cancelled last minute. But I was sooooo sure I’d be fine with just a bit more sleep.

I got up, and was still nauseous. If anything, I felt worse than I had a couple of hours previous. I now decided that my problem was that I hadn’t eaten anything. Of course, now I felt too sick to eat anything. So after a few dry heaves in the bathroom (after which I actually did feel somewhat better) I set off to pick my guest up, accompanied by the Socialist.

We pulled into the train station as the train we were to meet pulled in. Such timing seldom happens anywhere but the movies. Which, coincidently, we were slated to go see. There was a movie out that I was eager to see. I was convinced my friend would enjoy it as well, since it was about an interest of hers. So we headed directly from the train station to a town about fifteen minutes away, where the art theater was showing the movie at 4:15.

Bad move number two. You might be assuming that I knew what time the movie was playing because I looked at this week’s movie schedule. But NOOOOOOO, not me. I looked at last week’s movie schedule, noted the time, and went with that. I even knew I was looking at the previous week’s schedule It didn’t worry me, because this theater never changes its schedule from week to week.

I left the Socialist and my friend window-shopping in one of the shops that festoon the street where the theater was while I went to purchase the tickets. Lo! Our movie was playing at a different time this day than it was the week before. The new start time was 1:00. It was now 3:30.

Now there’s an “Oh Shit” moment if ever I encountered one. I’ve dragged my friend on a round trip to the middle of nowhere, at her expense, to see a movie that started before I even picked her up at the train station.

There was nothing to be done for it. I slunk back to the store, my virtual tail between my legs, to admit to my crime. My stomach, which had been touchy since the train station, was now in full somersaults. I don’t know if I was really getting sicker, or just sick at myself for screwing up. I confessed to my crime, with both my friend and the Socialist taking it with far more aplomb than they should have.

We all wandered back to the theater, discussing the various options of what to do. We debated the merits of the two movies we could see, decided on one of them, and then I dragged them all to the coffee/ice cream house next door. I was incredibly thirsty, and had convinced myself that all I needed was something to drink and my tummy would be fine.

Third big mistake coming up. If you are really thirsty, and really nauseous, do you chug your Orangina? Ninety-nine out of one hundred people will tell you “no”. Me? I’m that hundredth person.

So my Orangina lasted about 9.7 nano-seconds. And I actually felt better, for another 7.3 nano-seconds. Then my stomach began to tango back and forth over my spleen.

For a brief period more I was still bound and determined to stick it out. Then it belatedly occurred to me that “sticking it out” might entail barfing in the middle of a movie theater during the feature presentation. I did the right thing.

I bailed. The Socialist driving, we returned to our apartment, where my guest played with Clueless and the Grey Menace before her train was due to take her back home.

I definitely owe her a nice outing soon. If she’s crazy enough to take me up on it, seeing that she now knows how inept at planning and execution I am.

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As soon as we returned to the apartment after dropping my friend off at the train station, I went to bed. I took off my shoes, but that was the full extent of my preparations. Three hours later, I woke up completely disoriented, with a grey cat at my side and a stomach that once again obeyed the laws of gravity. That nap, along with Daylight Savings Time, served to completely throw my sense of time off for the rest of the weekend.

Whatever I’ve got, I’ve still got it. I woke up with a grumbly tummy again this morning. But it’s not as bad as Saturday’s was, and I really don’t want to take time off from work unless I have to. So while it may be slowing me down, I am not yet out for the count.

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This year April had a blizzard
Just to show She didn’t care
And the new dead leaves, they made the trees
Look like children with grey hair.
-Dar Williams, Spring Street

Yup. It snowed this morning. It was barely flaking when I got up. That’s what they were calling for. Flakes. Flurries. They are idiots, whoever “they” are. It freaking snowed. A few miles from my house, and the streets were starting to get covered. Halfway into work I saw my only accident (SUV sideways in the road, with the front wheels over a curb, T-boned by another SUV who must have slid into the first when it came to its final resting place). The radio was only too happy to inform me of perhaps another dozen accidents in my area. Unwilling to let my little Prius come to any harm, I crept along on the thin veneer of ice that had built up from tires passing over new snow, and got to work barely in time to make my physical therapy session (the place I get PT is right across the street from work). My primroses looked fine when I left, and they aren’t supposed to mind the snow, so all should be fine there. All the star magnolias that finally came into full bloom over the weekend have been torched though. Tomorrow the white flowers will be brown, and dead petals will litter more than one front yard around here.

Here’s what my garden looked like the day I planted it a week ago. For a bonus, I’ll include a picture of the spring wreath I put on our apartment door.

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And finally, since I did entitle this Cat PictureS, here’s the shot of G.M. peering under the bedroom door as I pull myself together for the coming day: